Sophie Blake
A Paris court has ruled that Apple can continue using its App Tracking Transparency (ATT) framework in France, rejecting a request from advertising industry groups to suspend the feature. The decision marks a significant moment in a series of legal disputes across Europe over the impact of Apple’s privacy controls on digital advertising.
The case centered on ATT, introduced by Apple in 2021, which requires apps to ask users for explicit consent before tracking their activity across other apps and websites for advertising purposes. Advertising companies and industry associations have argued that the mechanism distorts competition by limiting third-party access to user data while leaving Apple’s own services less affected.
In its ruling, the Paris judicial court declined to order a halt to ATT, allowing Apple to continue displaying the consent prompt on iPhones and other devices in the country. The court’s decision comes nearly a year after France’s competition authority fined Apple €150 million over concerns related to the same feature, underscoring the mixed regulatory landscape Apple faces across the region.
The advertising sector has warned that ATT has significantly reduced opt-in rates for tracking, leading to lower advertising efficiency and revenue losses for publishers and ad-supported businesses. Industry representatives have previously estimated that the decline in consent has cut advertising income by close to half for some market participants.
Apple has consistently maintained that ATT is a privacy measure designed to give users greater control over how their data is used, rather than a tool to restrict competition. The company argues that its own services are built with privacy protections that limit cross-service data linkage, reducing the need for the same consent mechanisms applied to third-party apps.
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